The Physiology of New York Boarding-Houses

by Thomas Butler Gunn, David Faflik (Editor)

The American boardinghouse once provided basic domestic shelter and constituted a uniquely modern world view for the first true generation of U.S. city-dwellers. Thomas Butler Gunn's classic 1857 account of urban habitation, The Physiology of New York Boarding-Houses, explores the process by which boardinghouse life was translated into a lively urban vernacular. Intimate in its confessional tone, comprehensive in its detail, disarmingly penetrating despite (or perhaps because of) its self-deprecating wit, Physiology is at once an essential introduction to a "lost" world of boarding, even as it comprises an early, engaging, and sophisticated analysis of America's "urban turn" during the decades leading up to the Civil War. In his introduction, David Faflik considers what made Gunn's book a compelling read in the past and how today it can elucidate our understanding of the formation and evolution of urban American life and letters.

Genres: History, Research, New York

236 pages, Hardcover

First published November 30, 1856

Reviews

[Elizabeth · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a tongue-in-cheek review of the different types of boarding houses in New York in the 1850s. It was quite entertaining in the beginning, but lost some appeal after the 25th or so chapter. At some point the various types of people started to run together, and since I am not looking to move into the mentioned boarding houses minute differences between types were less intersting.